


Einherjar

by skyline



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: M/M, Mythology References, Post-Thor: Ragnarok (2017), Temporary Character Death, goes AU after Thor, no infinity war spoilers, not well done mythology references but okay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-05
Updated: 2018-05-05
Packaged: 2019-05-02 08:47:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14541063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skyline/pseuds/skyline
Summary: Steve dies on a Thursday afternoon, shield in hand.Then he comes back.





	Einherjar

_Now_

 

Steve dies on a Thursday afternoon, shield in hand.

He’s fighting a brave fight, going toe to toe with Midtown Manhattan’s villain of the week.

No one sees the gun.

There’s a funeral, a big to-do. Tony’s drunk through most of it, but from what he recalls, it’s all a very fitting homage for America’s favorite hero turned war criminal turned hero again.

It’s not fitting for _Steve_ , but that’s the trouble with living icons. The man is always lost to the legend.

The Avengers hold a quieter memorial; drinks at Steve’s favorite Veteran bar, a few rounds of corn-hole.

Tony almost breaks down, surrounded by framed photos of men in camo, fighting in deserts with interchangeable landscapes, or heat-drenched jungles, or black and white stills from the Great War. Hell, there’s a few tintypes of Union soldiers in this place, interspersed between regiment patches and gleaming rows of service ribbons. The whole bar’s a shrine to the valor of people like Steve, people cut down before they finished living.

So yeah, Tony has trouble keeping it together. Then he orders another drink.

He keeps himself comfortably numb that way, even after Clint goes back to his family, and Peter heads off to Queens. Bruce and Nat disappear off to wherever it is they hole up now that the Tower’s owned by an investment bank. And Tony, anesthetized to the whole damn world, heads upstate with Sam to finish boxing up Steve’s stuff at the compound.

Wanda and Vision have been running the compound in Tony’s absence, fielding calls when mild evil raises its ugly head. They also took it upon themselves to construct some cardboard boxes. Everything is laid out for Tony and Sam already – all they have to do is deposit Steve’s junk inside and tape up the tops.

Steve never had much. It barely takes two hours.

After that, it’s an easy thing to hide out in his workshop, to let Dummy and You and FRIDAY take messages when anyone comes looking for Tony. Steve would tell him he’s wallowing, _think of the team, Tony_ , but Steve got himself dead and so doesn’t get a say.

The death of Captain America is a national tragedy – Time Magazine says so in a full write up, documenting the nation’s sense of loss – but tragedies happen every day. People move on. Everyone figures out how to live again.

Everyone but Tony.

He stumbles past a few major milestones – birthdays, Pepper’s wedding, yet another Barton brat’s joyous entry into the world – empty in his bones, but gritting his teeth in a smile anyway.

Steve’s imagined reprimand – _think of the team, Tony_ – is a constant echo in his skull.

Then the Aesir come. They’ve been scattered to the stars for years now, searching for a home world that matches the former glory of Asgard. Thor’s been gone with them, ever since Thanos’s siege. He has a kingdom to rule and, presumably, a whole lot of alien shenanigans to wrangle with.

No one blames him for his absence.

But now, he returns, his wicked brother a smirking shadow at his side, and tells Tony he has something he must bear witness to. Tony’s mid-conference call with Stephen Strange and Reed Richards, but sure, he tells them to hold and follows his god-friend up to the stars. Why not?

Except, it should be recorded for posterity’s sake that Tony doesn’t believe the Asgardians are actual gods. Their magic is advanced science, nothing more. He’s gets why people deify them – Thor and Loki are capable of the most incredibly things. But there’s nothing mystical about.

And Tony holds steady in that belief right up until Thor brings him to Steve.  

Steve’s eyes are the arctic color of the water that once imprisoned him, but something in their depths burns, a flickering, unnatural flame of silver-blue. He’s corpse pale, snowy skin bringing out angles in his face that weren’t quite so visible before, and the effect turns his familiar sternness to a hunger Tony does not recognize. He’s still wearing his skin tight, patriotic, commando gear, a tear in the chest where the bullet ripped through him.

It’s such a small thing to have ended such a big man.

The gasp-sob of Steve’s name sticks in Tony’s chest. Instead, he croaks, “What’s happened to you?”

Steve’s mouth stretches wide, all teeth and sharpness, but when he raises his hand to touch Tony’s cheek, it’s soft. Worshipful. _Steve._

Tony can’t breathe.

 

* * *

 

_Once_

 

Tony was thrown bodily through a brick wall. 

The armor scattered to pieces around him, purposely, purposely. He wasn’t planning on giving Steve an opening like that again.  

“Watch it!” He yelled. “Or the city will up our liability coverage.”

Steve landed in the rubble, shoulders squared, palpably radiating fury in a way he only ever seems to do around Tony. Tony held up his hands, “Whoa there, Cap. I didn’t _mean_ to almost martyr myself. It was mostly an accident, right, I only had to stop my heart for a second, see-“

Saving the city was such hard work sometimes.

“You’re a child,” Steve said, anger twisting his features behind the cowl, hands moving across Tony’s chest, his ribs, his hips, like maybe there’s bruising or a break he can’t quite find. “You’re _reckless_. You endanger yourself-“

“That’s my prerogative,” Tony replied mildly.

Cutting, Steve ground out, “You endanger the team.”

And then he’d punctuated all that belligerence by pressing his mouth to Tony’s.

Stripped of the suit, vulnerable in only his wrinkled dress shirt and limp tie, Tony opened his mouth to taste the salt-sweet of Steve’s lips, almost choking on the desperation Steve breathed when he lifted Tony bodily, to pin him against that brokedown wall. Tony could feel him, even through all that Kevlar-spandex blend, the half-hard weight of Captain America striking a match low in Tony’s belly.

“Don’t you ever do that again,” Steve had grunted against Tony’s teeth, and Tony nodded, nodded.

His knees gripped Steve’s hips. His arms were a choke-collar at his throat. Steve moaned for it, deep and guttural and _fuck_. Tony felt it reverberate down his spine.

Helpless, he surged into that sound, shaping the fraught assault into a mutual thing, a give-and-take that was violent and tender in turn.

He’d never recovered from it. Not from that first lightning strike clash of their hips, nor the magma-slow, molten comprehension that this stubborn warrior of a man Tony fought beside, the hero his child-self adored, that Steve carried Tony in his heart.

Tony knew lust, knew the way it muddled his head and his actions, but this, this was love and blood and covetous thirst, and the latter consumed them both. The seed of caring he’d nurtured in past relationships exploded into full bloom, and all of Tony’s thoughts, his desires, his plans – everything began to revolve around Steve.

It would have turned toxic, if Steve hadn’t felt the same way. But he did. But he had.

Then he died.

Tony’s world stopped on its axis, the space inside his ribcage a barren, dead place. He never believed he wouldn’t love someone again. He merely knew he wouldn’t love anyone the way he loved Steve.

No one gets that lucky twice.

 

* * *

 

_Now_

 

“Tony,” Steve whispers. Thor and Loki stand aside, not quite a respectful distance away, but they studiously pretend to chat about the weather anyway. It’s an impressive act, on a space craft where the _weather_ is recycled air and the occasional foul odor.

“How?” Tony asks. He is shipwrecked, he is drowning, jagged rocks and splintered bone and a year’s worth of untarnished grief dragging him down. “ _How_?”

Steve’s fingertips curve, his other hand moving up to join in on cupping Tony’s face. His eyes rage with that cold, deadly fire, but there’s no trace of it when he says, “I’m sorry.”

“That’s the opposite of an explanation, Steven, that’s-“ he cuts himself short, stalls the babble frothing forth.

He kisses Steve.

And Steve kisses back, deep and longing, like he’s missed Tony half as much as Tony has missed him. Tony whines, undignified, bounds up on the balls of his feet to press himself fully against Steve’s body.

Steve groans appreciatively, mumbles, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I never meant to leave you.”

It breaks the spell, if only for a moment. Tony pushes back, says, “Steve, you were shot. I don’t _blame_ you.”

“I do,” Steve replies, a mix of humility and pride echoing the words. “I got lazy. Forgot my training.”

Tony laughs, a weak, wondering thing. “I’d forgotten how frustrating you are. A gun, Steve. You’re not bullet proof.”

“Evidently.” Steve kisses the tip of Tony’s nose, his go-to move when he still thinks he’s right, but doesn’t want to argue. “Tell me what I’ve missed.”

Of course he wants a SitRep.

“Tell me how you’re here,” Tony counters.

Thor choose now to drop the eavesdropping, butting in with somber gravity, “He is einherjar.”

Huh. Tony prompts, “Once more, in English?” because yeah, he has no idea what the fuck that means.

“Einherjar,” Thor repeats. “A warrior of Ragnarok.”

That one, Tony knows.

“Ragnarok. Like.” He wiggles his fingers in an approximation of what he thinks of bullshit mysticism. “The world ends in fire and ice. Shiva dances. That Ragnarok?”

Thor frowns. “Who is…Shiva?”

Steve rolls his eerie eyes. “Tony. Don’t be rude.”

Tony feels the admonishment like a punctured lung. He can’t breathe for how many times he’s expected Steve to chide him for bad behavior in the past year, only to sink into agony a beat later.

Steve’s no dead anymore.

Or, kind of not dead. Tony’s not solid on the details here.

“Apocalypse, Norse-flavored, then,” he says, trying to keep the crazy, elated grin he wants to give Steve from breaking free.

“Ah.” Thor’s troubled expression lightens. “You are correct, my friend.”

Drenched in shadows, slouching forward, Loki sneers, “Ever wise, Mr. Stark.”

Tony retorts, “I’m ignoring you, Frosty Freeze, but don’t push your luck.”

Steve snorts, palming a hand over his own smile.

“Question. Didn’t Ragnarok come and go?” Tony asks, gesturing expansively around the ship. “Big fire guy? Bruce fought a wolf?”

Thor and Loki nod, a slight smirk on the latter’s face as he reminisces.

Solemnly, Thor intones, “Despite our best efforts, our sister would only fall to flame.”

“It was a glorious death,” Loki adds happily. Then he sobers, homesick and wistful in a way Tony didn’t know he could be. “But not so for Asgard.”

“Right, so…” Tony folds his hands into Steve’s absently, a familiar thing. Steve squeezes, encouraging, his pulse strong and true against Tony’s palm. “Apocalypse warriors?”

“Ragnarok threatens at different times in history. It will come again,” Thor says. He’s so grave, so godly. Tony forgets sometimes that the big lug can command such gravity, that he’s a _king_. “Captain Rogers will aid us the next time trouble dawns.”

“Captain Rogers is very giving like that,” Tony agrees. “And he does have quite the resume when it comes to apocalypses. Apocalypsii? End of the world scenarios.”

Thor does this thing where is he is both agreeing and trying to look troubled, and Tony figures that whatever is bugging the big guy should probably be addressed. At some point. Not now. He is brilliantly, manically happy. Steve is alive, and nothing can bring him down today. In a low hush, he says to Steve, “I can’t believe you’re here.”

Steve’s mouth quirks. “I wouldn’t leave my best guy behind.”

“You better believe it,” Tony shoots back, warm and sunshine-filled.

Miracles. Who knew they were real?

“Stark,” Thor says. It’s still regal and serious, weighty in a way that Thor only is when he’s about to royally ruin Tony’s life.

“I hate that voice,” Tony tells Steve. “Nothing good ever happens when he uses that voice.”

Steve’s smile turns into a thin line, this pale thing that hints at misery. Tony hates it, hates whatever it is that’s making Captain America look like a full litter of puppies has just been kicked. “Tony…”

Thor using his majesty is one thing. Steve, watching Tony like he’s made of glass, is another.

Tony’s heart swoops in his chest, a flutter that’s a thousand times worse than falling. At least when gravity grabs hold of him, he knows the suit will catch him. Here, now, Steve’s the only safety net Tony’s got, and he looks…helpless.

It’s not an expression Tony has ever seen Steve wear.

“Tell me,” he prompts, wanting nothing more than to purge the unhappiness off of Steve’s face.

“I can’t leave,” Steve says, which doesn’t make much sense. Then he adds, “And you can’t stay.”

Tony understands that part. He’s got stuff, back on Earth. People.

Pepper, helming his company; Happy, housesitting, and probably floating in his pool right this damn minute; Vision, haunting the halls of the compound and mooning over Wanda; Rhodey, still in physical therapy; and Peter, who eagerly awaits Tony’s tips, accepting them like the word of god. He’s got responsibilities, things he owes each and every one of them, and no intention of staying here, on this alien ship.

So why does Steve want to stay?

“Help me out here,” Tony says, looking from Steve to Thor and back again.

Loki tells him, “The einherjar are bound to Asgard. Asgard, in this case, is this ship.”

“We search for a homeland,” Thor adds, but he won’t meet Tony’s eyes. “It may take many years.”

Steve squeezes Tony’s fingers, but doesn’t say anything, giving Tony the space to figure out what he feels. But for once, he doesn’t need space. He knows how he feels: raw, arteries ripped open, bleeding across the floor with how deeply he aches.

And he wouldn’t change a thing, doesn’t want to be anywhere but here, with Steve’s callused knuckles entwined with his. They can’t be together, but at least Steve’s alive, he’s real and solid and his heart is beating strong.

They can’t be together.

No.

“We’ll make it work,” Tony decides, even as the impossibility weighs down upon him. “I’ll build a space suit.”

Steve laughs, choked. “Tony, don’t.”

“Don’t what? Believe in us?” He frowns down at their linked hands. “I do. You can’t make me stop.”

He’s aware of Thor and Loki, watching, but all that matters is the space between himself and Steve.

And Steve, gorgeous, bullheaded, magnificent Steve, nods. No hesitation, no doubt.

He believes, too.

“We’ll make it work,” he agrees.

He leans in close, his breath on Tony’s tongue. He tastes like something lost, then found. He tastes like miracles and Steve, and Tony never thought he’d have this again.

“Kiss me,” he tells Steve, devastated and hopeful, all at once.

Backlit by the halls of the Asgardian ship, his gilded cage, Steve does.

It’s not a happy ending, maybe. But it’s a second chance.

This time, Tony won’t let go.

**Author's Note:**

> Obviously I'm taking some liberties here - I started this right after Thor 3, and forgot they were settling on Earth before Thanos's ship shows up. And I'm glazing over IW completely, because I meant to publish months ago. 
> 
> Lastly, I'm really taking the Percy Jackson interpretation of einherjar here. They are definitely more interesting than what's mentioned in this tiny little oneshot, and worth reading up on if you're interested.


End file.
